Readers’ forum: Holding company VAT problem

We act for a holding company that is not VAT registered but has incurred VAT on purchases for legal and professional fees relating to its trading subsidiaries. It has just come to light that one of the VAT registered subsidiaries has claimed input tax on all of these fees even though the supply of services was to the holding company.

Is there a solution to this problem which means the input tax will not need to be repaid to HMRC? Can a VAT group registration be done retrospectively so that the effective date of the group registration coincides with the date when the holding company first incurred VATable fees two years ago?

The group income is fully taxable and the holding company would be a member of the group. If instead we apply for a VAT group registration from a current date will this...